For our construction paper letter, we made a giraffe with a letter G body, four legs with attached feet and a little head I had cut out.

I used a hole punch to make a bunch of “spots” out of brown paper, which was a lot of fun to attach. One of these days I may even remember to buy and easier-to-use hole punch so my daughter can help me out with things like this!

For our letter sorting, I made two guitars, and my daughter placed the lowercase Gs on one and the uppercase on the other.

I later realized this would have looked better if I’d cut out the Gs as little music notes. Next time.

Is there anything better than glitter?

Not if you’re a toddler/preschooler/anybody!

The supplies for this included glue and green glitter. Easy + fun = awesome!

First, empty the glue into a large bowl. Add a tablespoon or so of water to the glue bottle and shake it well to help loosen the rest of the glue. Pour that into the bowl, too. Stir in some food coloring.

Mix the Borax with 1/2 cup warm water until dissolved, then add it into the glue and stir.

This will produce a slimy substance within a puddle of water. Pull the goo out of the water and knead it a bit to squeeze out some of the excess water.

It’s pretty much done at this point. A little more water will probably leak out as the kids start to play with it, so I suggest playing on a mat or plastic tablecloth or something similar the first time, to help catch the extra water.

We stored ours for a few weeks, playing with it now and then. After a while, it became stiffer and pieces would break off that we could then knead back into it. But my girls enjoyed both the slimy and stiffer versions.

Green Glitter Goo is a combination of

1. clear hair gel {from the dollar store}

2. green glitter {sometimes available at the dollar store}

3. a few drops of green food coloring {optional}

Mix up all that stuff in a plastic gallon-size freezer baggy {freezer bags are sturdier} and let the kids go at it. We traced all kinds of letters and shapes in the goo.

It lasted quite a while, too, before I even worried about it leaking. Just make sure no one jumps on it or anything, and it should last at least a few weeks, if not more.

Seriously. I love spice cookies. And I love cream cheese. And these are spicy and silky and gooey and sweet… *sigh*

But the most exciting part? These can be adapted to every holiday. Just change the shape of the cookie cutter and possibly the flavor of cake mix.

I’m drooling just thinking about it.

Anyway, I used spice cake for these. Cake mix cookies are usually pretty soft and these were no exception.

I also used cream cheese because I thought it would compliment the spice flavor, but I’m going to try these again with other cake flavors and still stick with the cream cheese.

Incidentally, I used both butter and cream cheese in both the cookies and the icing, and the total amount used between the two was one stick of butter and one 8 oz. package of cream cheese. Makes things easier.

Oh, and speaking of easy – do you see that photo? Four ingredients. Four. (Technically it becomes six if you add in the vanilla and sugar from the filling, but that still qualifies as super easy in my book.)

Here are all the cookie ingredients, except for the cake mix, creamed together.

Isn’t that beautiful? Off to the fridge!

Remember: if your cookie cutter is not symmetrical (like mine isn’t), you’re going to have to use both sides of the cutter to make cookies that will fit together when the icing is sandwiched in between them.

In a large bowl, use a mixer to cream together the butter and cream cheese. Add egg and vanilla and blend until fluffy.

Slowly sprinkle in the cake mix and flour and blend until combined.

Shape cookie dough into a flattened disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least a half hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Roll out dough to a 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface. If you want to make a sandwich cookie with a cutter that is not symmetrical (like in the photo), then make sure you cut out an equal number of matching cookies, using both sides of the cookie cutter.

Bake on parchment lined cookie sheets for 5 to 8 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of your cookies. They should not yet be noticeably browning on the edges. Do not overcook them or your sandwiches will be difficult to eat.

Allow cookies to rest on the hot pan for a few minutes, then remove to cooling racks. Cool cookies completely before adding icing.

I know that, originally, we had copied the recipe from a magazine. Many years ago I typed it up and put it in my recipe binder. Unfortunately, I don’t know the original source. But I’ve made a few changes over the years anyway (to turn them into the proclaimed “ultimate” spice cookie), and so my own version of the recipe is featured here, along with a printable version.

But first, all the yumminess my camera could capture:

I just love how the shadow of the mixer in the mixing bowl looks like a Christmas tree. :)

This is the butter and sugar about to be creamed together, with the eggs and vanilla waiting patiently nearby.

When you blend together the dry ingredients (flour and spices) be sure to thoroughly sift them together. I use a fork for this. You want the spices to be evenly distributed.

I know it looks like a lot of spice when you’re measuring it out, but don’t worry, it won’t look like that much once it’s all mixed – and the flavor is fantastic!

The gooey, spicy, luscious dough…

Once it’s blended, it’s pretty soft. At this point you need to divide the dough in half, shape each half into a disc, wrap the discs in plastic wrap, and refrigerate them for an hour.

I’ve found that the easiest way to do this is to lay out a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter and scoop the dough into the center of it. Fold the plastic wrap over the small mountain of dough and shape generally into a flattened circle as you pull the wrap over and around the dough.

It’s sticky, so using the plastic wrap to shape it instead of your hands saves you some time and aggravation.

After you’ve had an hour to clean the mixer, sort through your cookie cutters, place some parchment paper on your baking sheets, and dance to a few Christmas songs, then the dough will be ready to be rolled out.

You could actually leave it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, but I don’t think I’ve ever left it overnight. After a few hours the butter in it gets too hard to roll out and then it needs to sit at room temperature for awhile, but if you leave it too long then it gets too soft, and that just makes my life complicated… so, really, between 1 to 2 hours is best.

Usually, in the midst of Christmas cookie baking marathons, I’ll make this dough, put it in the fridge, make and bake another cookie (like chocolate chip, for example), and then cut out and bake these. Works out pretty well that way.

And look at the spices in those snowflakes: you can SEE the cinnamon, the cloves… *mouth waters* …mmm, you should smell the magnificence.

And these reindeer cookies are a great way to illustrate that flour helps you cut out the cookies. The dough is soft and will stick to the cutters, but dipping the cutter in a dish of flour before stamping out a couple of cookies will help the dough to fall right out of the cutter.

Also, peeling away some of the dough surrounding the cookies before trying to lift them will help. As will using a spatula like the one pictured below, or like this.

But, sometimes I peel away the extra dough, and sometimes I don’t bother. I certainly don’t pull away ALL of the dough… except for in the above photo because I thought it would make a neat picture. :)

But you really only need to do a little at a time to help with transferring the cookies to the baking sheets.

If you’ve rolled out the dough without enough flour under it, the cookies will stick to the counter. Just dip your spatula in flour before sliding it under the dough to loosen them.

And remember, with soft cookie dough like this, flour is your friend:

You should put flour under the dough, on top of the dough, on the rolling pin, on the cookie cutters, and on the spatula. I mean it: flour party.

If there is too much on the finished cookie, just blow off the excess before baking. Any extra at that point will be absorbed by the egg wash that you put on the cookies just before baking.

Although, I have to admit, I sometimes forget to add the egg wash. But that’s okay. It’s not essential to the cookie, but it does add a nice shine and a silky smoothness to them.

The above picture is what was left of my dough after I collected all the scraps, rerolled them, cut out more cookies, and did it all again. I got two small stars out of the last roll.

But we don’t waste food in our family.

Especially cookies.

So, I rolled up these scraps into a circle, flattened it into an oval, and placed it on my last sheet of cookies to bake. After all, sometimes these last-of-the-scraps creations are the best part of making cookies. :)

And really, these cookies are great two ways: thick and soft or thin and crunchy. My mom likes them crunchy, I prefer them soft. Luckily, that’s an easy problem to solve when baking multiple trays: just cook some longer.

So, even tho the directions call for 10 to 12 minutes, I’ve cooked some larger ones up to 14 or 15 minutes. Just keep an eye on them, to prevent burning.

Once the cookies were fully cooled, I sprinkled them with powdered sugar. This step is not necessary, and I wouldn’t suggest doing it until you are ready to eat/serve them, but it is a nice touch.

Oh, and I didn’t bake them in that little metal pan – it was just to keep the sugar contained. :) The cookies need to cool on racks before you add the powdered sugar.

Combine flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, and salt in a bowl until well blended.

Beat butter and sugar in a bowl until creamy. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture.

Divide dough in half, flattening each piece into a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Roll dough about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness on a well-floured surface. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters that have been dipped in flour. Place cookies on ungreased baking sheet, preferably covered with parchment paper, and brush with the eggs white mixture.

Reroll scraps and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake cookies for 10 to 12 minutes or until just browning on edges. Cool on wire racks. Store covered.

Before serving, as an optional step, you can sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

Recipes:

Crafts:

My Recent Posts

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 207 other followers

Disclaimer: Sometimes I feature links on my blog that lead to affiliate websites. If you click on these links and make a purchase from that website, I may receive a small compensation, but it will NOT change the price you pay. Thanks in advance!